THE SHOWPIECE theatre premiere in this year’s GIAF is the staging of Paul Muldoon’s great elegy Incantata, which the poet wrote in response to the death from cancer, in 1992, of his one-time lover, artist Mary Farl Powers, who was aged just 44.

Longford-Westmeath Independent TD, Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, has welcomed the allocation of €300k funding for the return of 45 vacant local authority properties to productive use this year in the constituency.